Her eyes slid off my face and she picked up her cup and took a drink.
“Hope, you broke the chain of evidence.”
“No, I didn’t,” she said. “It was never logged in as evidence.”
I just stared at her and finally, when I didn’t speak, she lifted her head and looked at me again. “You and I both know Marcus didn’t have anything to do with Danielle McAllister’s death. But he was the last person she had contact with and part of his key chain was found with her body.” She closed her eyes for a couple of moments and took several breaths. “And before you ask, John Keller and Travis Rosen both have theirs.” She had obviously uncovered the backstory of the key chains at some point in her investigation.
“You can’t hide evidence,” I said. A bubble of panic had settled in just under my breastbone and I pressed my fist there as if somehow I could hold it in place and keep it from overwhelming me. “I know how it looks, but you’re putting yourself at risk and if it comes out this will just make things look worse for Marcus.”
Hope opened her eyes again. “They were old friends, Kathleen, old friends who were involved in some kind of disagreement in a public place. And then one of them is dead. How much worse could it look?”
“It could look like Marcus asked his partner to hide evidence of a crime. You could lose your badge. You could go to jail. Both of you could.”
My voice was getting louder. Hercules pressed his furry body against my leg. I stopped talking and swallowed a couple of times to get my emotions under control.
Hope looked away again, her expression a mix of guilt and defiance.
“I know you care about him,” I said. “But you have to turn that key chain in, because you and I both know it doesn’t belong to Marcus so it has to belong to whoever killed Dani.”
“All right,” she finally said. She still wouldn’t look at me. “You know what will happen.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “You’ll be taken off the case and Marcus will be called in for questioning.”
“And then what?” Hope said, finally looking in my direction.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
5
The key chain fob was logged in as evidence. I didn’t ask Hope how she explained the time lag. We agreed that I would tell Marcus what she’d uncovered so far, that way she’d be able to truthfully say that she hadn’t shared any information with him. It was splitting hairs but it protected both of them and that was enough for me.
I tossed and turned most of the night. I woke up in a tangle of blankets with an arm and a leg hanging off the bed. It made me think of all the mornings my mother had insisted that sharing a bed with my dad was like being on the channel ferry.
I missed them. They were both on the West Coast at the moment while my mother did a two-week guest stint on The Wild and Wonderful. She was hugely popular with fans of the racy soap opera, who had been clamoring since her previous visit for a return performance.
I looked at the clock. It was too early to call. My mother hated mornings. I couldn’t tell her what was going on, anyway. I pulled on a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and went down to the kitchen to make coffee. That’s where I was when Hercules came through the door. “Through” as in the bottom left panel almost seemed to shimmer and then he was standing in the kitchen.
“Merow?” he said, looking like he was surprised to see me. He’d probably been sitting out on the porch. He liked to do that, look out the window at the world and not have to get his feet wet in the early morning dew on the lawn.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said.
He stretched, arching his back and yawning. “You too?” I asked.
He gave an offhand murr that might have been a yes.
I poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, curling one leg underneath me. Hercules launched himself into my lap. He craned his neck to look in my mug.
“It’s coffee.”
He sat back on my leg and looked around the kitchen.
“I’ll get breakfast in a minute,” I said. I pushed up the sleeves of my shirt and took another drink of my coffee.
Herc bumped my free hand with his head and I stroked his fur.
“How am I going to tell Marcus that he could be a suspect in his friend’s death?’ I asked the cat. I set my cup down and massaged the back of my neck. “How do I tell him her death wasn’t an accident?”
My plan had been to invite Marcus for dinner, but now that seemed like such a long time away. “Hope said she thought the medical examiner’s official report would be ready on Monday, but what if she’s wrong? I don’t want him to be blindsided.”
Hercules hopped off my lap and walked over to the back door. He didn’t go through it; he just sat down and stared pointedly at it, then looked over his shoulder at me.
“I don’t want to have coffee on the porch,” I said. “I don’t have any socks on and I don’t have a fur coat like you do.”
He made a sound in the back of his throat, which could have best been described as an expression of exasperation. I didn’t know what he was trying to tell me. I was tired and trying not to give in to the worry gnawing at my insides.
Hercules came back across the floor to me. I’d left my purse and keys on one of the chairs the night before. He stood on his hind legs and swept the keys to the floor. Then he sat down, shot me a look and started to wash his face.
Door. Keys. I was supposed to make the connection and I likely would have, if I’d had more sleep. I needed to talk to Marcus before I could deal with anything else.
Marcus.
Door.
Keys.
“You think I should go talk to him right now,” I said.
Hercules looked up at me, his white tipped paw paused in midair. “Merow,” he said. It was about as close to “Well, duh,” as a cat could get.
I got to my feet, put my cup in the sink and got four stinky crackers from the cupboard. I put the crackers at his feet. “You’re a very smart cat,” I said.
I went upstairs, brushed my hair and teeth and found a pair of socks. I didn’t bother with makeup and I didn’t call Marcus, either. I went back downstairs and put out breakfast for both cats. There was still no sign of Owen but I found Hercules in his favorite spot on the bench in the porch.
I sat down beside him for a moment. He put two paws on my leg and I stroked the white fur at the top of his nose.
“I won’t be very long,” I said.
He lifted his head and nuzzled my chin.
“I love you, too,” I said.
There was no traffic on Mountain Road and very little all the way to Marcus’s house. I pulled in behind his SUV and walked around the house. The light was on in the kitchen. He must have heard the truck pull in, because the back door opened as I stepped onto the deck.
Marcus was barefoot and shirtless. He hadn’t shaved yet and his dark hair was still damp from the shower. “Kathleen? Is everything all right?”
I nodded, crossed the distance between us and wrapped him in a hug. He hugged me back, then took a step back, hands on my shoulders. “It’s not that I’m not happy to see you but it’s six thirty in the morning. What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you and I couldn’t wait.”
“All right,” he said. “Come in. It’s cold out there.”
We went into the kitchen and I sat across from him at the table.
“So what do you need to talk to me about?” he asked, pulling on a T-shirt that had been over the back of his chair. His blue eyes were narrowed with concern. “Is it . . . Are we okay?”
I reached over and put both my hands over his. “No, no, no. It’s not us.” I made myself smile at him. “We’re fine. We’re better than fine.”
I saw him relax a little. Then a shadow seemed to pass over his face. “It’s Dani, isn’t it,” he said.